PROSQUASH
Vol 13 No. 2 Issue No. 50 April 2009
Chief Patron: Harshvardhan Patil (Minister, Govt of Maharashtra) // Founder Director: Mahendra Agarwal // Directors : Narendra Gour (I.R.S.) Navneet Soni (I.R.S.) // Executive Directors: Anil Diggikar (I.A.S), Bharat Bhushan (I.R.S)// Honored Patrons: Vivek Nair (VC & M.D.The Leela), Sajjan Jindal (Chairman & M.D.  JSW Steel Ltd), Eric  Dastur (Chairman, K.M. Dastur Reinsurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd.) // President: Ashish Gupta // Vice President: Noreena // Secretary General: Sanjay Goyal // Joint Secretary: Vicky Kalludi // Treasurer: Ashok Nagpal // Executive Committee Mem.: Saifee Jani, Rakesh Lakhanpal, Madhukar Musle, Organising Secretary: Karan Mehra, Ajit Singh, Imroze Pathan, Karanjeet Singh // Advisor: Pradeep K. Vijayakar // Chief Executive: Vidhya Rao // Technical Director: Amitoj Inder Singh // Chief Co-ordinator: Riaz Mohammed
      
 

A jubilee of unforgettable squash
 Pradeep Vijayakar looks on an appetising 50 hit by PROSQUASH

Papa Pandole launched the first PROSQUASH in December 1996 along with Vaman Apte, Subhash Wali, Mahendra Agarwal, Ajoy Bhandare and Rahmat Khan

   

The golden jubilee beckons for PROSQUASH. It's hard to believe that 50 issues of the newsletter have reached out to more than 3000 squash fraternity all over the country and abroad.

It seems only the other day that Mahendra Agarwal called me to explore the idea about a newsletter about the project he was embarking on promoting the interests of the squash markers.

We decided to call them professionals since they were making a living from the game. Thus I coined the world PRO and added the word SQUASH. And PROSQUASH was born.

The world of squash was a small compact one. There were the south Mumbai clubs like CCI, Bombay Gymkhana and Willingdon Sports Club and at the other end there was Otters Club. They would organise tournaments and leave it at that. All they got was a mention in some of the newspapers, none in the language papers.

It took the vision of Mahendra Agarwal to go beyond that, provide opportunities for the professionals by first organising tournaments exclusively for them.  When people began flocking to these events interest grew five-fold. Agarwal then began having tournaments for them and we had the start of the handicap and doubles events. In time five-star hotels began evincing interest. If The Leela, with guidance of Capt Nair and son Vivek, was the first hub, others came in its wake and even though The Leela courts closed, squash continues to flourish at the other hotels, clubs providing jobs for the pros.

All this pioneering activity needed to be chronicled for posterity. Raju Chainani was bringing out his newsletter “SIMPLY SQUASH” but he was more international and didn't devote much time to the grassroots game. He advised Mahendra Agarwal to come up with Newsletter which had more of Indian squash news.  PROSQUASH decided to highlight the activities. As the activities grew the news increased from four to the present sixteen pages.

PROSQUASH began featuring other development activities like coaching camps. When Rehmat Khan, the coach of Jahangir, made Mumbai his home, PROSQUASH featured him, enlarging his image which he capitalised upon to make big money. PROSQUASH, more than the newspapers highlighted the other great Pakistan player-coach Mohibullah Khan when he stopped over on way back to Karachi.

In time PROSQUASH began featuring the youngsters. Now this is a very important contribution. Youngsters and their parents keep these cuttings carefully and when the time comes for admission for foreign universities and squash scholarships these come useful. There are many number of youngsters who thus benefited. PROSQUASH has played a big role in this.

Then came the tussle with officialdom. It was felt that the national federation was being run in a high-handed manner. Juniors' entries were not allowed to be  submitted to foreign events unless the national federation was involved. Draws of tournaments were fudged to favour some players. All this injustice had to be highlighted. PROSQUASH began playing this role. People looked to PROSQUASH rather than the national papers to take up cudgels on behalf of the aggrieved players.

As the sport of squash spread people in places apart from the metros began having activities. These were not being highlighted by the national media. PROSQUASH began featuring them, events in Chandigarh, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Hyderabad, Pune, Ajmer, Bellary and Indore began getting the prominence they needed.

All in all PROSQUASH has played its role in taking the sport of squash to another level. The more the merrier saying applies to sport. There is the national federation, there are the clubs and there is looming presence of  Indian Squash Professionals using its ingenuity to create events that capture the imagination of people beyond the squash courts.

PROSQUASH has reflected this ingenuity and its special issues have been even more special. Let's hope PROSQUASH marches on to the other suceeding jubilees in a manner that will capture the imagination of a grateful squash fraternity.

  
     
 

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